Kathleen Phillips
Communications Specialist
Texas A&M University

Background

Agriculture communicators at universities are pulled in many directions. For most, their tasks include news, publications, and graphics to meet the needs of internal and external clientele. Even for those who are strictly assigned to news and media relations, job duties typically stretch into committee work, joint projects with other specialized communicators, increasing direct contact with the public through the Internet, and a host of other time zappers.

What tends to filter to the bottom of the to-do list are science stories. Yet these are the type of stories that administrators often look for as indicators of public acceptance and elected officials approval of the university's performance.

A process is needed to enable communications specialists to write and pitch science stories regularly while maintaining quality coverage of day-to-day news topics and other job tasks.

Method

One half day was spent away from the office in late-February to provide uninterrupted creative thinking on the problem of finding more time to cover science stories while maintaining existing work expectations.

Four academic departments assigned as one news beat to one communications specialist were examined to determine which faculty have Texas Agricultural Experiment Station appointments. These are the faculty who conduct research, for the most part. About one-half of the 117 faculty (58) in Biochemistry/Biophysics, Forest Sciences, Horticulture, and Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences have Experiment Station appointments.

A list of the 58 Experiment Station faculty was compiled by department on a table with two additional columns for "Date" and "Results." The date column provided space to enter either a time of an interview or other interaction with the researcher. The results column provided the entry of a story, media referral or other outcome.

This list revealed that of 58 Experiment Station researchers in the four departments, 27 were researchers who had been actively involved in media efforts with the communication specialist on that beat. The remaining 31 scientists had not been involved with the news media via the communication specialist. Some scientists were hard to categorize for various reasons such as a long passage of time since any media effort was provided or because the researcher handles considerable media on his/her own. Therefore, the criteria used to determine which column to put those scientists in was "Would Dr. X know who to call for media assistance?" If the communications specialist didn't think a particular scientist would know how to reach her at Ag Comm, that person was put into the category of not having been involved with news media.

How to reach this considerable list of researchers still loomed. How could one communications specialist develop a relationship with 31 additional scientists while maintaining working arrangements with the 27 existing partners AND continuing with the other 59 with Extension appointees and a multitude of Agriculture Program projects and unit responsibilities?

Realizing that "meeting the scientist" was a necessary first step, a solution had to be found for learning about each of the 31 new researchers. Visits likely would turn up stories to be written. Stories would need to be pitched. And the communications specialist also would have work travel, personal days off and holidays taken out of the routine work day mix. Thus a schedule was devised to alternate these tasks over a 16-week period (March 5-June 22) in the initial test of this plan.

Using a block-style monthly calendar (available in most word processing software or schedulers) the tasks were delineated in color. First, the days of work travel, personal leave and holidays were designated with pink highlights to signify days on which no interviews or writing should be scheduled. Next, every other week was highlighted in green to designate those days that would be spent interviewing and scheduling appointments. The alternate weeks were highlighted in blue to designate days for writing, shooting video and taking photographs to accompany stories.

To accommodate pitching time, the Monday of each blue (writing) week was highlighted in yellow. On those days, no writing would be done because stories that had gone through the process would be pitched beyond the traditional dissemination methods. Likewise, to keep the process going, the Friday of each green (interviewing) week was adorned with a large "S" to include scheduling time as part of that day's efforts. Notes were kept on the printed block calendar as to which researchers had been e-mailed, times and locations of interviews scheduled, what stories were to written, and what stories were to be pitched. (Graphic 1)

Realistically, to factor in interviews of new researchers while maintaining the existing workload, it was determined that a maximum of four meetings, estimated to be at one hour each, could be scheduled during each green (interviewing) week. That schedule would cover eight weeks over a four-month period, because interviews would be done every other week. To avoid having stories from the same academic area during the same week, the proposed schedule of interviews selected one researcher from each of the four weeks as much as possible.

To maximize time, scheduling of meetings/interviews with the 58 researchers would be handled by e-mail rather than phone calls. A generic message requesting an interview was drafted for this purpose. (Attachment 1 below) A master list for the eight weeks of interviewing was created to include which four scientists would be contacted for visits for each of those weeks.

A record of this effort was maintained online to keep our unit head informed of the progress. (Graphic 2).

Results

The first four researchers were e-mailed March 5. One responded. The interview with that researcher did not yield a story. That seemed like a slow start, but the plan continued. Over the 16-week effort, 20 researchers were receptive to interviews on the first e-mail, two had left the Experiment Station and nine did not respond. A followup e-mail in July and August to the nine who didn't respond to the first e-mail brought responses from two more for a total of 22 (71 percent) reached through this effort. No additional followup requests were made.

Five stories were written immediately for release (see appendix below). Four of the stories were accompanied by photographs and two also had videos. Additionally, one story was written but rejected by the researcher, one story was written and is on hold pending acceptance of the research in a journal, three stories pertaining to research in progress are planned when results are complete, and two stories are agreed to by scientists who are writing papers for publications. When these stories have been disseminated, one-half of the scientists reached will have placed a story. All 22 scientists provided information that was useful for the communication specialist for handling media queries.

All of the stories that were released received some type of play in the media. Here is a synopsis for each story:

* Wildlife parasite collection - received the most limited coverage in print media but has continued to get hits on the Web site (http://agnews.tamu.edu) where it is archived..

* Rice DNA - ran in a couple of Texas daily newspapers as well as several rice publications and two general agriculture or science news Web sites. It continues to receive at least one hit a day on the Web site.

* E. coli - have clips for 31 placements including daily newspapers both state and national, television stations, news wires and services, magazines, international newspapers, and internet news sites. In the first month of its posting on Eurekalert, got 1,008 viewings of the full release and continues to receive about two hits a day on the Web site.

* Copper disease - released just three weeks after Sept. 11, this story received limited play in the media but was picked up by an international wire service and a health news Web site. It continues to receive about two hits a day on the Web site.

* Crayfish and the environment - released about four weeks after Sept. 11, this story's use was primarily in agriculture and environmental media. Several magazines used it as did several Internal news sites. It currently is receiving an average of eight hits a day on the Web site.

Five of six researchers with whom stories were done expressed gratitude and a positive experience from having their research exposed to the public through the media. The sixth research did not like his work written in lay terms, so it was never disseminated. All but that researcher expressed positive feelings about realizing that a news organization exists to publicize their work, and all expressed a desire to be interviewed by the media on their subject of expertise should a such query be made.

During the green (interviewing) weeks, the total time spent with researchers including travel time to and from his/her office or lab was no more than eight hours of a 40 hour week. The remainder of time during green weeks would be spent researching additional information about their topic, if a story was to result, and in doing other tasks such as Extension stories, Ag Program project work, media queries, etc. But the interviewing time was careful guarded and not changed unless requested by the researcher.

During the blue (writing) weeks, time was specifically set aside, and strictly guarded, for writing. Sometimes this meant closing the office door or working at home for a day. Enforcing writing time was fairly easy since a total of six research stories from this effort were written during the eight writing weeks.

On pitching days, every other Monday, a story written the previous week would receive full attention for attempts to place it with media that had not used it through our typical methods of dissemination (e-mail releases and Web site). To do this, research of printed clips and online searches was done to determine where the story had run. Next, thought was given to the type of audience that would be best served by the story. A specific list was then created from the online service Vocus that Texas A&M's Ag Comm subscribes to for this purpose. Initially a large list would be made, but later it was felt best to "Target 10" media outlets per news release for the pitch. Most pitches were done by e-mail, some were by fax if an e-mail address was not know, and a few were phoned. In addition to specific publication pitches, the three of the five releases also were put on Eurekalert, an online service that journalists look to for news releases. Those stories all received more placements. Pitching is a time-consuming process to which the full day was spent every other Monday.

Scheduling days were less time consuming. This entailed looking at the proposed schedule of interviews to see which researchers were next, personalizing the generic message with their name and proposed time for the interview and e-mailing each individually. This step took less than 30 minutes every other Friday during the 16-week trial.

The total time spent on each story completed varied, but it should be noted that sometimes months passed from the interview to the story. The typical time spent from interview to story release was six weeks, the shortest time was four weeks and the longest was 24 weeks. (Attachment 2)

Just when all is working well with the initiation of a new project, one can expect kinks in the plan. About halfway into the16-week effort to reach scientists, the unit and administration decided to launch a new slick magazine. Yet another demand for writing was placed on news team and field team members. This took time from the effort to reach scientists and was a primary reason for putting at least two of the stories on hold (one has since been written). Story assignments or other obligations that are heaped on a writer have to be worked into the scheme if scientists are to continued to be reached. In this case, about two weeks of every four month period are now consumed by writing for the magazine.

Conclusions

This plan had many advantages and virtually no disadvantages. Foremost among the advantages, even if the interview produces no story immediately, the visit most likely will reveal expertise that can be pitched to the media, or the capability of a researcher to be interviewed by the media.

Also, though the schedule may seem rigid, it actually helped to schedule other stories developed. If a researcher or Extension specialist called with a story idea, the communication specialist could take a glance at the colored calendar and suggest a day and time during a green "interview" week, then place it on schedule for writing in the following blue week. That helped protect writing and pitching time. Most stories are not of urgent nature, so can be scheduled in a more organized manner to make most efficient use of a writer's time. Obviously, if a breaking news story should happen, it would take priority.

During the interview, scientists can be told about the Ag Comm news process which further educates faculty about our services. The scientist also should be told the likelihood of his/her information being a story immediately or some time in the future, or if their expertise is not a story at this time but might be useful in the event of media calls about the topic. If a story is to be developed, the scientist should be given a description of what to expect.

Though this was always the process in an interview during this effort, one researcher apparently wasn't given a clear understanding of what to expect from the media following the release of his story (which appeared in Science magazine). He left on vacation the day of release so numerous media called the communication specialist to find out how to get quotes from him. Finally he was tracked through his secretary who knew his cell phone number and he agreed to do interviews from a lake. The expectation of the scientist's obligation following release was thoroughly discussed and agreed upon with each researcher thereafter.

Of some concern are the seven researchers who have never responded. One thought is to call each of them to attempt to set up an interview. The other thought is to accept that they were given the same opportunity to respond as the others. Not all researchers want to be involved with media coverage. Some would not be good at it. Finding that out through a project such as this also is an advantage.

Getting to know more about the research of these scientists has been a positive experience for the writer. A goal for 2002 will be to expand upon this project to include visits to the other 27 researchers with whom a working media relationship already had been established to update their research and see what new stories may come from such visits. Also, visits will be scheduled with new researchers in those four academic departments who have joined Texas A&M since March 2001 when the project began.


APPENDIX
- News article, October 03, 2001, Research Targets Deadly Copper Disease In Infants, Dr. Ed Harris, Biochemistry and Biophysics, (http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/BICH/Oct0301a.htm)

- News article, June 21, 2001, Virus Found To Carry Antibiotic Against E. Coli, Dr. Ryland Young, Biochemistry and Biophysics, (http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/BICH/Jun2101a.htm)

- News article, May 08, 2001, Rice DNA Finds Breeding Traits to Hasten Better Varieties, Dr. Bill Park, Biochemistry and Biophysics, (http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/BICH/May0801a.htm)

- News article, October 08, 2001, Crayfish In Sam Houston National Forest Illustrate Environmental Health, Dr. Fran Gelwick, Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences,
(http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/WFSC/Oct0801a.htm)

- News article, April 16, 2001 Parasites Inventoried Worming Their Way into Texas Wildlife, Dr. Norman Dronen, Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences,
(http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/WFSC/Apr1601b.htm)


Attachment 1

Hi,

I'm a science writer in Agricultural Communications. I'm setting up a
series of meetings with the scientists I haven't worked with in departments
I cover. I'd like to come over, meet you and let you tell me about the type
of research you do. It's mainly so that I will know more about the
important work you do. Of course, you might even tell me something that
would make a wonderful news or feature story. I write both for print
(newspapers and magazines) and for broadcast (TV and web videos).
If you have any time during the week of March 19-23, please let me
know. It would take about an hour.

Cheers
Kathleen Phillips

Attachment 2